Rail chair



Dec. 20, 1938. S S, .'DD 2,140,683

RAIL CHAIRS Filed July 6, 1937 m r N Patented Dec. 20, 1938 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE Afpplication July 6, 1937, Serial No. 152,176 In Great Britain July 8, 1936 1 Claim.

This invention relates to rail supporting means for use on permanent ways and has particular reference to a rail chair primarily intended for supporting and holding the two ends of adjacent lengths of rail, but applicable also for supporting the rail intermediately of its length.

Broadly the invention provides rail supporting means in which a wedge is forced downward in a vertical or substantially vertical direction into contact with a fishplate and one jaw of a chair so as to hold the rail against a second fixed jaw provided on the chair.

In a preferred arrangement the supporting means comprise a chair with a sole plate for attachment to a sleeper, two fixed jaws, one having a vertical face for contact with the web of the rail and the other an inclined seating face for a wedge, a fishplate for engaging between the head and foot flange of the rail and having an inclined seating face for a wedge, means to prevent relative movement between the rail and the fishplate, a taper-section wedge for seating on the inclined faces of the chair jaw and fishplate, and means for preventing relative movement between the chair and the wedge.

A preferred embodiment of the invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawing wherein Figure 1 is a plan view of the rail joint chair, Figure 2 is a transverse section on line II, II, of Figure 1, and Figure 3 is a pictorial view of the chair, fishplate and wedge employed.

The chair consists of a sole plate I with holes 2 therein to receive bolts or pins for securing the chair to a sleeper and a pair of spaced apart fixed jaws 3 and 4. The web of the rail 5 is adapted to be held in contact with the vertical or substantially vertical face of the fixed jaw 3, said jaw 3 being undercut to accommodate the foot flange of the rail 5. The rail 5 is wedged into contact with the jaw 3 by the action of a wedge 6 which is forced vertically or substantially vertically downward on to inclined seating faces 1, 8 provided on the fixed jaw 4 and a fishplate 9 respectively. The fishplate 9 is of 45 symmetrical pentagonal shape in cross section so as to be reversible and has its upper and lower faces inclined to correspond to the slope of the rail head and foot flange. The slope or inclination of the jaw seating 1 is the same as that of the fishplate seating surfaces 8 (i. e. about 60) so that the wedge 6 is also of symmetric cross section and accordingly reversible.

Relative movement between the wedge 6 and fishplate 9 and the wedge B and jaw 4 is prevented by means of complementary ridges l0 and II and grooves I2. Relative movement between the wedge 6 and jaw 4 is prevented by the passage through holes in said wedge 6 of bolts l3, the

shanks of which are accommodated within gaps l4 provided in the step-like portion l5 of the chair. Undercut recesses it are provided in the step portion I5 above the level of rail supporting surface of the soleplate I in which the heads of 5 the bolts I3 are housed.

In order to limit the endwise creep of the rail 5 a bolt H is fitted on the rail web at a suitable distance from the end of the chair, the abutment of the bolt I! with the end face of the 10 chair limiting the rail creep.

The chair illustrated is primarily intended for supporting the two ends of adjacent rail lengths. For supporting the rail intermediately of its length a narrower chair of similar form 15 with a shorter wedge and fishplate may be used.

I claim:

Rail-supporting means comprising a sole plate to be mounted upon a sleeper, a pair of spaced apart jaws integral with and rising from said 20 sole plate, a seat for a rail base between said jaws, one of said jaws being formed to engage with one side of the web of a rail operatively mounted on said seat, the other jaw having a downwardly and inwardly inclined surface, a fish plate having top and bottom faces for engagement with the under face of the rail head and the upper face of the rail base, respectively, the upper and lower outer face portions of said fish plate being inclined upwardly and inwardly and downwardly and inwardly respectively, from a point substantially midway between the top and the bottom faces of said fish plate, the inclinations of said outer face portions relative to a horizontal plane being equal, the inclination 3 of the downwardly and inwardly inclined surface of the second mentioned jaw being equal to the inclination of the said outer face portions of the splice bar relative to a horizontal plane, a wedge element, said wedge element having opposite side faces thereof to be forced downwardly between the inclined surface of said second mentioned jaw and the upper outer face portion of the splice bar, thereby to urge the splice bar into engagement with the rail and the latter into 5 engagement with the first mentioned jaw, downwardly converged, the inclinations of the said opposite side faces of said wedge element relative to the horizontal being equal and the same as to the inclinations of the outer face portions of the splice bar and the inclined surface of the second mentioned jaw relative to the horizontal, and means for forcing the wedge element downwardly between the inclined surface of said second mentioned jaw and the upper inclined outer face portion of the fish plate.

STANLEY SHAW WIDDAS. 

